


Made of your brittle bones

by agirlnamedfia



Category: Almost Human
Genre: Angst, M/M, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2018-01-02 21:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1062007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agirlnamedfia/pseuds/agirlnamedfia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is sleeping with Dorian. Then he isn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Made of your brittle bones

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for sads! Title from [The Belle Game, Tradition](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsWiXynYeUM). (Many thanks to [allfleshisgrass](http://archiveofourown.org/users/allfleshisgrass/pseuds/allfleshisgrass).)

The chairs on this side of the interrogation room are a hell of a lot less comfortable than the ones John is used to. The slightly-below-average temperature that never bothered him before is making his skin rise in goose bumps. The walls of the room are carefully opaque, but he can still hear every footfall outside. They slow down as they get close, and often stop altogether at the door. He imagines the crowd of people staring, trying to see inside. He wonders if there are people he knows out there, and what they're hoping to see. He wonders if they're judging him.

He wonders if he should be judging himself.

*

Dorian was a synthetic first and his partner second, but only because John didn't have a choice. Captain Maldonado said he was special, that they both were. John didn't see anything special about either of them, so he substituted "special" with "annoying" and yeah. That fitted.

Except, John soon learned, Dorian was different. He wasn't like anybody John had ever met, and that was the word right there, wasn't it? Dorian wasn't like _anybody_. You wouldn't compare him to an MX the same way you wouldn't compare an apple to a pear. Same basic group, but so entirely different. And you couldn't compare him to a human either. 

He existed entirely outside the set of interactive parameters John had carefully developed over the years. Not colleague nor synthetic, yet still at work. Not family nor friend, but somehow still demanding his trust.

He hadn't known how to handle that, so he'd just ignored it. Pretended it wasn't an issue or didn't think about it, until one day he'd turned around and Dorian was just there. With smiles and electric blue eyes, with jokes and uncomfortably insightful observations.

Just Dorian.

*

When Valerie walks in, she doesn't look at him. Not really. Her eyes glide over John's face but there's no spark of recognition. Her face is completely blank. 

It's the way she looks at perps and that, more than anything else in this entire fucked up mess, is what makes emotion bloom hotly in John's chest. Too bad he can't figure out what it is he's feeling. It could be shame or anger, might be defiance or guilt. There's a buzzing in his ears and his head feels like it's been stuffed with cotton. It's hard to make sense of what he's thinking, let alone what he's feeling.

She shuts the door behind her immediately, quick enough so John can't see who's out there. The noise of conversation briefly spikes but he can't discern anything specific before it turns back into the hum he's heard since Maldonado marched him inside the room. It's probably for the best.

The folder in her hands is his personnel file, he can tell that much, and she drops it on the table along with a glass of water. 

"The captain will be here soon," she says, her voice expressionless, before turning around and heading for the door.

"Valerie," John croaks out before he can stop himself. "I—" He stops there. There's no point, really. He couldn't explain himself even if he tried. 

She turns around slowly. There's life in her expression now, her eyes searching his for something he knows he can't give. 

"The captain will be here soon," she repeats eventually, impassively, before slipping out the door as quick as she'd come in.

John doesn't know what she read in his face, but he knows what was written on hers and it wasn't absolution.

*

Dorian didn't move in so much as John invited him over once and he just never left. 

It wasn't like it was a hardship. Dorian was surprisingly messy for a synthetic, but still way more organized than John. 

John cooked (or what passed for it) and Dorian cleaned up. John had a beer and watched the game; Dorian settled next to him in the couch with his own beer and offered up commentary on the players and match statistics. John could never figure out when he was being genuine and when he was sarcastic, but that was half the fun of it.

They passed each other in the bathroom, picked up each other's towels and shared a washing machine on laundry day. Dorian read all of John's books and didn't earmark any of them. John insisted Dorian listen and familiarize himself with his music collection. The internet was fine and everything, but records were a lost art to be savored and appreciated.

John had screaming nightmares and Dorian woke him up with gentle touches. Dorian's joints creaked when it got cold outside, so John got them a second bottle of olive oil.

It wasn't much, and yet somehow it became everything.

* 

Captain Maldonado sends all the gawkers away before she even steps foot in the room. John recognizes the angry snap of her voice, if only because it's been directed at him often enough.

She doesn't avoid his eyes when she finally enters the room, like Valerie had. Instead, she meets his gaze head-on. She looks tired, with a side of confused. He wonders how long it's been since she had a moment of rest. 

"John," she says, sinking down on the chair. "I'm sure you know why I'm here."

He nods, doesn't say anything. He tried it before and it didn't work then. Maldonado gave him his job back when he didn't have anything left. He owes her more than half-formed explanations and half-meant apologies.

For a mere moment, she just looks at him and then sighs, her shoulders slumping. "What the hell were you thinking?"

John shrugs. "Don't think I was," he offers quietly. 

"No, that much is obvious." She pauses. "I'm trying to understand here, but."

He looks away. "Dorian is different. You said it yourself."

"That doesn't make him _human_ , John."

John clenches his teeth to prevent from snapping at her. He doesn't answer. 

She shuffles through the papers she brought in with her. He recognizes those too. The words "DISMISSAL" and "DISREPUTABLE CONDUCT" are littered across the page. At the bottom, Maldonado's signature is stark against the glare of the papers in the fluorescent light.

"You know this is a mere formality, right? You know what's going to happen." 

She waits him out. "Yeah," John says eventually. He knows.

*

It wasn't an accident. I wasn't love either. It was comfort, maybe. And fear.

It was turning around and realizing Dorian was sparking again, except this time the bullet hadn't just grazed his head. It was watching Rudy work on him, not knowing if he'd be okay. It was not being able to sleep, running on adrenaline and the absolute terror of seeing Dorian unmoving on the floor still running through his veins. It was realizing that he couldn't afford losing someone else dear to him.

Dorian crawled into his bed that night and when he curled up under the blankets, John didn't push him away. Instead, he ran his fingers over Dorian's shaved head, lingering over the barely-there mark in the tissue. Dorian's exhale felt a little bit like a sob and John clenched his other hand around Dorian's wrist.

"I don't want to die," Dorian whispered.

"So don't," John answered, and pressed their mouths together.

*

In the end, he doesn't gather up the courage to ask until she's already at the door.

"Dorian," he forces himself to say. "What's going to happen to him?"

There's a hint of pity in Maldonado's voice when she replies. "He's being deactivated."

*

John watches Dorian through one-way glass. The room is big and white and the machine barely looks like anything. He could probably walk in there and break it himself, put an end to this. He doesn't.

Dorian looks almost small in comparison, standing on a little platform, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. He's quiet and still. It's foreign to John, a Dorian who's not humming or fidgeting. He remembers him in the car, months ago, and flinches involuntarily. _The data I've studied suggests that the best proof of one's existence is if one is remembered after they're gone._

"I'm sorry," he says through the still-working communicator. 

The only sign of Dorian's surprise is a small sound. He can't know where John is, even he shouldn't be able to see through the glass, but somehow their gazes connect. "I'm not," Dorian says after a second. 

"This wouldn't be happening if we'd—If I hadn't—"

Improbably, the corners of Dorian's mouth twitch up. It's almost a smile. "Even now you won't credit me with the ability to make my own decisions? After this?"

John shakes his head. "I knew better."

"We both did." Dorian pauses. "We both knew how this was going to end, I think. We just chose to do it anyway."

John rests his hand on the window, presses his fingers until the tips go white. He's never wanted to touch Dorian more than he does now. "I'm still sorry."

Dorian doesn't reply for a moment. His voice is quiet when he eventually speaks, almost wistful. "You were right," he says. 

"About what?"

"It's nice to know I'll be remembered. Comforting." The tech enters before John can reply. Dorian doesn't even look at the guy. "I'm glad you're here," he says to the glass. 

John swallows. His throat is painfully constricted. "I wouldn't be anywhere else."

*

John watches as they deactivate Dorian's chip, as they lower him down, as the tech presses a few buttons. He forces himself to watch until all the light has gone from Dorian's eyes and they wheel him out.

He leaves his badge in the room when he goes.


End file.
